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Felt I did the right thing in calling mil to inform her of upcoming surgery for our dd. Mil must have mass emailed dhs family about it! Not just his siblings but her siblings, all his cousins, people who live across the country that we don't even see. Of course these people texted and fb msged by dh. He knew I told his mom but we were unprepared for the onslaught of this. Needless to say, we were they arguing my husband saying I should have followed his lead and not called her. Bg: he never told me mot to call her. He has actually been I'll and I though he would be late and unable to call her.

I was trembling with fury at mil and dh. He later said I did.it to myself and that I should have known. I.spoke with my own mom about it and she was like I can't believe she did that but it's her family mews. That I should stay out of it. I want to ask her what gives her the right to tell everyone. Obviously if we wanted everyone to know WE would have sent out an email. I am mad at myself for trusting her to keep her trap shut.

So where do so do from here? I know some people would think what is the big deal. On some sense I can understand. I am a private person and for me it was a big step to trust her with private information. And this is where I end up. My mom says if I say anything then I will be painted as the bad guy. Just don't know what to do. Even if I do say something to her what's she going tonsqy oh sorry, it was just the family. Her family which I am excluded. I feel used and stupid. Stupid for trusting her and used. me innocently doing something and her twisting it to some drama. If the family cares so much about us, how come we never talk to any of them? The whole thing just is a lesson for me. Told my husband I am done talking to her. Will not be giving any info, updates, calls, gifts, acrds to his FOo. His department from now on.

I realize.im venting here and being a little nuts but man, it never ceases to amaze me that no good deep goes unpunished.

My question to you ST is.... did you explicitly TELL your MIL that you didn't want her spreading the news to the entire family? Did you say.. "I'm only wanting close family to know this so please don't post it on FB?" If you didn't.... and you know that she likes to put everything out there.. then I don't see how you can be so furious. She cannot read your mind.. and she obviously has a lower level of privacy expectations than you do. I actually feel empathy with her.. she has infuriated you... and has no idea that she has. You are saying that you called her because your DH didn't tell you NOT to call her.. How is that different from what she did? I think it is very unfair to exclude her in the future if she has no idea what your feeling are and what your expectations are and why she is being excluded... I'm not trying to be mean to you... I'm just giving you the other side of the coin... and that is people cannot behave in the way you expect them to unless they KNOW what you expect.

Just reread my post... and I hope I am not coming off as mean or insulting. Sometimes it's hard to offer constructive ideas in print because you cannot hear voice inflections or tone.. and emoticons don't really help. Please to not read it in a harsh tone.. but a soft one. It's hard to get a point across that may differ from what someone may want to hear without being considered harsh.

Stilllearning - your posting reminds me of my husband's family (and that does not include my MIL whom I love very much). His sisters take every bit of information and blow it up and out of proportion (and always, always in a negative way). We have been married for over four decades and I'm still not considered a family member - they are still hoping that I will "leave" their brother. So, I take the "medium chill" approach - I am friendly, polite and appear to be engaging in sharing information and communication. But, I divulge very little information - no details, no future plans, no opinions and definitely no expectations - only the bare, undisputed facts. I guess one could say that I speak like a politician - a person of many words but nothing to say (and always with a smile on my face and a lilt in my voice - oh, I'm being so catty here). So, I appear as though I am co-operating and I am, but I also am protecting my family and myself. Still - they find 'targets" to use against me but they tend to be few and far between. It is really sad when one has to resort to this mode of communication with family members; however, in our case, it appears to be working. Wishing the best for your child ....

If I may interject from personal experience... and really that's all any of us can really do.. I believe this thread illustrates how relationships between some MILs and DILs go south. In my case.. I thought I was being a perfect MIL.. and everything was fine between my DIL and I. I thought she cared for me.. and I certainly cared for her. This went on for over 10 years... and then things started to get strange.. She became distant.. She stopped calling me.. she seemed unhappy when she was around me... etc.. I kept asking my DS what was wrong.... AND here's what ended the relationship... Instead of him being honest... he kept saying "NOTHING" and I kept feeling that something wasn't right. Finally.. the darn broke over an incident and my DIL let me have it with both barrels.. 10 years worth of grievances came out all at once..Things that I had no idea bothered her. Bridges were burned that cannot be rebuilt. We no longer speak.. and no longer have ANY relationship. MY poor son is in the middle as he loves both of us and has to balance keeping her happy... and keeping me included in his children's lives. NOW.. If ONLY the grievences were addressed over the years before they built up into insurmountable issues.. things may have been salvaged... and dealt with. They are now beyond fixable. Neither one of us won... and only her husband and my son has payed the price.. For what it's worth....

Jdtm, it does not sound like your SILs meant no harm. The idea is to look at the intentions. A lot of relationships could be saved if people avoided knee jerk reactions. If you have been married for 40 years so you must know that.

Your mind is a garden your thoughts are the seedsYou can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.Author unknown

Actually, Stilllearning, my husband's family do mean harm (the exception is my MIL). Extreme jealously can be toxic as can undiagnosed personality and mental health disorders. My sister cannot believe that I still communicate with them but, as I said before, I do love my husband and MIL (guess whom my husband takes after). Over forty years has taught me "how" to do this - as well as our moving some distance from his family. It's really quite sad ...

Surgery went hopefully. Ten days to recover and she'll out and about. Jdtm the whole medium chill post is where I need to be but don't know how yo filter everything, hopefully it will come with practice?Lilly your other side of the coin has been invaluable to me. I feel similar to your dil in that things have built up over time. However, it has always been MY dh who has requested that I not confront his FOO as he says it won't change anything other than giving them more fuel. Not saying that's your situation but just putting it out there.Thank you all so very.much.

Just an aside about not letting things build up. My DS said something to me one time that set me off and I did that. I have no memory of the issue and it doesn't even matter. The darn (the people pleaser in me) broke and I brought out my laundry list and very harshly dumped it on him. He was stunned. Then he quietly told me that he would "this one time" deal with each issue I had raised but never again. He said he was holding me responsible for my own honesty from that point on. He has never had to enforce that boundary, I've never done it again.

Ahh, the communication age. the share everything age. the if you don't want to share everything about you and yours you must have something to hide age.

I understand. I am fairly private and don't want news about me spread around unless I do the spreading. But I can't gag-order anyone. I'd say take this as a learning experience. Next time, leave it up to your DH to share or not share. You're probably in a darned if you do/darned if you don't situation. If you share, you have to deal with the stress of everything plastered across the virtual universe. If you don't share, you could be called out about it across the virtual universe. Pick your poison.

Focus on DD's recovery. I'll keep her and the whole family in my prayers.

No... not necessarily.... How about ASKING MIL to NOT put specified information.... like GDs medical info on the internet.. Has that been tried? Maybe MIL has no idea what is a secret and what is general info. Clueing someone in can work wonders sometime instead of letting them mess up and then being mad about it.

Thanks Herbal, that describes very much what I feel.Lilly, I totally agree with you. I should have spelled out exactly what mil could or could not do with the information. Obviously, I didn't do a very good job at it. Although I might call the information private not secret, just saying. To me this was all fell apart due to communication breakdown and different family of origin "norms". To me MIL is a gossip, even if it is family news. That fact that we didn't tell anyone else or post anything on fb or it was the eve of the procedure when she was told were intentional.

I did call Mil and literally had my phone with the kind words You provided me and she said she meant to only post to.gsil an of course.call the one cousin who lives near is to order her flowers (unwire why aw she uses.a.computer and orders.stuff). The important thing for me was by doing so ,I Was Able to move past it instead of being stuck there. Her reasons didn't matter so much as to me as the feeling that I wasn't letting her get away with it. I certainly don't think she intentionally did it to annoy me

I need to work.on my filter. My husband, her son, said I need to talk to her without telling her anything... Umm, I think that has been his life strategy but I find the notion of that overwhelming as any word can be misinterpreted or twisted... Regardless, I am going to be working on what I say or do t say to her.

"Talking with her without telling her anything", DH's strategy, to me is the red flag. You have cleared the air and feel better and now it seems to me that the next step may be to get that she isn't going to change. We can tell others what they can say and do but most of the time time no matter how well intended they are, they go on being themselves.

Yes, I agree. And I also think maybe this helped you with the next incident that arises. Maybe you can tell her something and also say, "And please do not share this with anyone else. We wanted you to know but we do not want everyone else to know. We would like to include you in our news, but really want this to stay between us".

And then see what she does? If she doesn't do what you ask next time, then you will know not to say anything else and if it's brought up that you don't tell her anything, then you are able to say, "I would like to but after the last time when we asked you not to say anything, and you did, I figured it would be better to not say anything."

And then again, maybe she will keep her mouth shut? One can hope?

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -Joseph Campbell